In celebration of the 20th year of APA-Renga / Lynx, we
are happy to announce that all the participation renga finished or
discontinued since the beginning of the magazine are now available online as APA-Renga
/ Lynx Twenty Years of Renga.
Here is the introduction with a hope that you will view the whole book!

Introduction to Twenty Years of Renga

The idea for Participation Renga came from Jim Wilson, known in 1986, as
Tundra Wind, who was living in Monte Rio on the Russian River. As a Zen Master
with Korean linage, and musician with admiration for John Cage, Jim learned of
the Japanese poetry form of renga before learning of haiku, as almost everyone
else had done. He was fascinated by the idea of non-linear writing and excited
by the idea of how what one wrote was dependent upon the poetry of the
previous lines that came from someone else.

Living in a rather remote, but scenic, part of northern California, Jim
wished to practice this kind of writing with others – with strangers. Jim
was already the member of several APAs, which stands for Amateur Press
Association. These were large and small groups of persons who bonded together
to share their writing on a non-selective basis. Each member paid a small fee,
just to cover printing and mailing costs, and submitted work on a regular
basis. The written submission, being it poetry, or in Jim’s case, science
fiction and personal journals, was copied, collated and then mailed to each
participant.

From this Jim got the idea of writing up several hokku, he had in
the meantime done his reading on the form, copying them on colored papers and
placing them in light cardboard folders. These he sent to any and everyone he
could interest in the idea. Unknown to him, just miles down the road, were two
women who were already writing renga together and separately.

Terri Lee Grell and I had already met after Terri by chance bought a copy
of my long, little chapbook, Duet for One Mirror (22 pages: 1984) in a
local bookstore. Each of us reached out pulling in our friends so that a
unique group formed including Celeste Fannin, who later illustrated so many
issues, Ken Leibman who went on to be the editor of Frogpond, the
journal for the Haiku Society of America, Eric Folsom the editor of the
influential Factsheet Five in Canada, Larry Gross the publisher
of Whup! and educator known for his work with the Korean poetry form,
the sijo, with the resulting magazine - Sijo West, done with Elizabeth
St Jacques .

Jim’s distance from the current haiku scene was a certain advantage for
him. Instead of following their methods and instructions, he was free to
recreate a very new kind of renga – and he did from the very beginning. Gone
were all the century-old Japanese rules, and subject matter. Jim gave each
renga new rules. Some were to be only one-liners ("Redwood
Shadows"), others were all three-liners and some had the traditional mix
of two and three lines. For the first issue, Jim and his partner, Bob Jessup,
responded to the initial hokku (along with some made up initials to swell the
ranks). This policy of identifying the links only by initials stayed in place
during all of Jim’s years of editorship.

Probably the greatest innovation that Jim brought to renga writing was his
concept of the renga "blooming" or "withering." Each time
someone wrote a link the renga was expanded. If two persons responded to the
same link, that renga was then duplicated. Now there would be two versions of
the renga running simultaneously with it possible for two or more participants
to continue on these versions or expand them into as many branches as there
were responses. The potential for a staggering number of renga going on all at
once might have daunted or stopped a lesser person, but Jim believed in the
righteousness of following one’s dream. He also had the idea that any link
that got no response would eliminate that branch of the renga. Thus, as long
as people were adding links, the renga would bloom and multiply. If no one was
interested or inspired to respond to a link, that branch would be dropped. In
some cases, renga that were fairly developed, would hit a point where no one
responded to any of the branches and the renga was discontinued before it was
finished.

It was only with the use of computers that all of this was made possible.
The cut and paste feature permitted one to add the previous parts of the poem
to the new links and to control (somewhat – errors did abound) the ordering
of the poems.

In each packet, rubber-stamped with the logo "APA-Renga," Jim and
Bob sent out the sheets containing the renga, instruction on how to
participate, letters, and later, even short articles on renga writing.
Publication was scheduled for every six weeks with the first deadline being
August 11, 1986.

The way one joined APA-Renga was to open an account by paying in
$5.00. Jim then kept track of how much it cost him for production, envelopes,
and postage and subtracted this from the account. Contributors were charged
for publication costs only. If a participant failed to contribute, but got the
magazine, and extra $1.00 per issue was subtracted. In each issue was Jim’s
hand-written note of the status of the account.

Contributors had several privileges. They could start a renga, set up any
rules or goals, and write the beginning verse or hokku. They could add
on to any or all of the renga in the issue. This rule was soon modified to
allow only 12 adding links after Celeste Fannin overwhelmed the system by
writing responses to every renga and every version. In addition, contributors
could send in "two pages or less of comments, observations, gossip, tips,
hints, prognostications, reviews, editorials, notices, advertisements,
etc." Soon completed renga, either solo or in collaboration, were being
added.

By the second issue, there were nine active renga. After issue six Terri
and Jim had gotten together, and figured out a way to cut production costs
(all those colored individual, full-paged sheets of paper were getting
expensive to print and mail) and decided on the slender 4 x 14 inch format,
which fit the width of the printed renga. Jim missed the colored papers, but
the new format was intriguing and easier to read and use. At this time, the
rule came up that one could not reply to one’s own links and has continued
ever since.

In 1989, Jim’s partner Bob Jessup became ill with AIDs, and Jim’s last
issue was five months late. At this point he handed the magazine over to
Terri, who had in the meantime moved to Washington to settle on the Toutle
River, on the flank of Mt. St. Helens. There she worked for the local
newspaper. Thus, when she took over APA-Renga she first changed the
name to Lynx (as a pun on the linking in the participation renga). It
was her idea to print the zine on newsprint and enlarge it. As a poet herself,
Terri widened the audience by including all genres of poetry and writing. With
her ability for marketing the subscriber list began to lengthen. Still, there
was only a small group who maintained an interest in and continued to
contribute to the participation renga. Many poets felt their personal voice
was violated if they wrote with others and that their work might be
compromised by exposing it with less talented authors. Others knew better and
hung in there with the activity. At one point the participation got so slim,
Terri polled the readers about whether to continue the participation renga in Lynx.

The participation renga were a lot of work. It was a huge job managing all the versions of a
renga, figuring out to which one the new work was linking, and which ones were
discontinued. And they took up a lot of paper space as the renga got longer
and longer. It required a lot of work to be invested for only 5 – 8 persons.

In 1992, after seven issues, planned for three times a year, Terri quit her
newspaper job and her last issue was printed on a copy machine on 11 x 17 inch
sheets. Eight of the 24 pages were given to the participation renga. The next
issue was scheduled for August but never appeared.

In the summer of 1993, Terri called me saying she had decided to go for her
MA in psychology and asked if we would adopt Lynx. Feeling I could
never make the zine as big and impressive as Terri had, Werner, my husband,
and I agreed to at least keep the renga going. Part of the enormity of the job
with Lynx, was the huge influx of stories, articles and free-verse
poetry. Deciding that inclusion of these other genres was leading interest
away from the participation renga, and since my interest in tanka had grown,
we decided to steer the Lynx back toward the haiku scene. Since we
already had a copy-printer for AHA Books, we bought a comb binder, and
redesigned the magazine with lynx-brown covers and crème pages in a 4 x 11
inch format. Werner came up with the distinctive Lynx logo. That first
issue was illustrated by Marlene Mountain, and had twenty pages of
participation renga out the total sixty.

By drawing in the haiku and renga writers, Lynx became the primary
outsource for renga. Most haiku magazines found they took up too much space on
their square pages, but all renga fit right in Lynx and contributed new
ideas and contributors to the participation renga. Still the interest in renga
was so small, despite our having subscribers in 17 different countries, so it
was good we also published tanka. It wasn’t long before we had, along with
participation renga, collaborative tanka.

By the year 2000, our printing machine had given out and we were having Lynx
printed in Fort Bragg, and now losing about $600 per issue. We decided to
put Lynx completely on-line and cease paper printing. We did this among
howls of protest and some boycotting, but in the end (at least today) it has
turned out to be the right move. Even though, according the hit counters, Lynx
is having eight to ten times more readers, the contributions to the
participation renga have remained small - about eight to ten persons.

From the beginning, it was Jim’s dream to be able to somehow collect all
the completed renga done as participation renga. And once, in 198, he
made a booklet of the first renga we completed called, Old Pond, based
on Basho’s famous verse

old pond
a frog jumps into
the sound of water

which had twelve links and twenty-four versions. For this effort, Jim
included all the links, even the ones which withered and did not go on so that
absolutely nothing was lost.

For the twentieth anniversary of APA-Renga/Lynx, I have compiled all
the finished versions of the participation renga, but have had to drop the
versions which did not survive. However, since putting Lynx online, all
those versions, since June of 2000, can be viewed. Paper copies of all the
renga are still floating around, and are in the American Haiku Archives in
Sacramento, California, so they are not lost.

As you read over the completed renga you can see how names of persons you
may recognize have come and gone, but in the end, the genre is done only by a
very select group. Here is the list of the participants.

Before I let you get on to reading these renga, I would like to point out
some of the ways in which these are a very special form of poetry.

Renga, due to its almost 1,000 year history in Japan and its many
permutations with accompanying rules and roles, is a very fascinating poetry
genre. Because all the action, and the poetry, occurs between the links, it is
very demanding to read and understand. However, thanks to the "stream of
consciousness" writing experiments of the early twentieth century, we are
better prepared to not only understand how renga work, but to do them
ourselves.

Already at this time there is a fairly large deposit of modern
English-language renga as evidenced in Werner Reichhold’s book, Symbiotic
Poetry. While most of these renga are written by a previously selected group
of writers, the participation renga are written by an ever-shifting group. In
addition, most renga written today are done by persons trained in, or at least
greatly exposed to, haiku. By drawing from this wider audience, the
participation renga written here are not so rule-bound and thus, are freer and
more inventive. The subject matter encompasses all emotions and all levels of
writing – as a poetry of the people should do.

Working with the many versions, it was easy to see how selective writers
were in choosing the stanza to which they wanted to link. Simply in the act of
deciding to answer to this link, and not that one, the writer has been
selective. A decision has been made that this previous link is weak, doesn’t
relate to me, or my experiences, or is taking the renga in a direction I do
not approve of. By being able to write responses to only12 (and later
10) of the many, many versions of the poems, the writers themselves were
determining the direction of the work. This is the direct opposite of the
so-called renga master, who alone determined the worth of link and could
decide if a stanza was to be included in the final version or not.

Some of the participation renga were discontinued before they reached the
length the hokku writer had determined. Very often these verses included
subject matter or such diverse writing methods that no one wanted to associate
with this group of writers. I know I often could not respond to certain renga
because I simply did not like them. Other persons did value them so they were
able to write add-on links because the style fitted them. Democracy at work.

As you read through the renga, remember that all of these links, except the
first or the last ones, are there because someone wrote a response to them.
This means that each person sending in links, had many stanzas that got no
response, and thus these branches were left out of future issues of the
magazine. It was not always easy to discover that the marvelous stanza you had
sent in last time failed to move one single person. I am fairly sure I am not
the only person opening a fresh issue of Lynx, counted the number of my
links that got a response and lived, and briefly mourned for the lost ones. At
least the stanza was published in one issue and the others would continue to
be repeated in future issues, even into this collection.

Some of our participation renga probably should not be named as renga at
all. The ones started by Jean Jorgensen, which required no writing, but only
the addition of a cliché or lines from a song, should more properly called
symbiotic work. Still, they were fun and gave us good lessons in linking. Even
persons who might not have felt capable of writing renga, could participate in
these works, so they were excellent for beginners. The rhymed Burma Shave
signs "renga" would also surely slide out of the territory of real
renga.

Some of the rules the hokku writers dreamed up seemed almost bizarre. I
think of one in the early years where the author made a complete framework of
seasons and subjects for each link. Needless to say, it did not last very
long.

Writers starting a new renga were encouraged to think of it as their renga
and stay with it. By deciding, again that principle of choice, about which
links they liked, and responding to them, the author was able to shape and
continue the renga. Some people failed to follow this suggestion, but Carlos
Colón, who is not only an excellent renga writer, but also a very
conscientious person, scrupulously followed the rule. In his "Openedoor"
renga there is one beautiful version he and Jeanne Cassler worked on nearly
alone. It is like watching professionals dance. Surely influenced by the
then-current fashion of writing haiku in a continuous line of overlapping
words, he brought the craze into the renga domain – something that never
would have happen in other renga-writing groups.

While many of the participation renga are short (the longer they are, the
harder they are to manage while multiplying and typesetting), the one started
by Jim Wilson in 1986, titled "Gently Wiping Dust," is still
currently available for new links. At one time the renga had shrunk to one
version, and I thought it would die. But it survived, bloomed and currently
has ten versions and 17 options or verses it is possible to add a link to. By
having the participation renga online, it is available now for anyone to follow
even the discontinued links.

Still it seems very gratifying to have all the completed renga compiled
together. Do not let your eyes glaze over by the repeated links, but read to
notice how different endings change the whole character of such similar poems.
There is much for modern poets in any genre to learn from renga writing. Just
remember to keep your attention, not on the links, but on discovering what is
happening between the links to discover the true poetry.

Jane Reichhold
Gualala, CA
March 15, 2005

MY MEMORY THEATER
Terri Kelly

When I think of the beginnings of Lynx I think of the ocean. It was
on the north coast of California where I first met Jane Reichhold and Tundra
Wind in the mid-1980s and a new wave of the renga movement began. Was it fate
that all three of us lived on the wild Sonoma coast within about 30 miles of
each other? Maybe.

Renga first enlightened me by way of Jane's "solo renga" chapbook
- Duet for One Mirror - which I had purchased at a gift shop in Jane's
hometown, Gualala, about 20 miles from where I lived at Salt Point. I sent
Jane fan mail (I remain her biggest fan). She told me about a local
"Amateur Press Association" zine, APA-Renga, that had just
begun to make the rounds to a handful of renga collaborators by way of Tundra
Wind in Monte Rio. An issue of APA-Renga was sent to me. I loved it. I
responded to all the renga there. The poetry in APA-Renga was bold and
raw and wild, like the ocean that pulled on my feet.

Sometime later, Tundra Wind contacted me about eventually taking over the
publishing of the zine. He needed to hand over the making of APA Renga
to someone who could keep the renga going and perhaps expand on the original
idea for the zine. He wanted to see if I should be the one to take over APA
Renga. He lived close by in Monte Rio, so he came to my house and we sat
at my kitchen table and got to know one another. I think the visit was mainly
for him to see if he trusted me. I probably tried to impress him somehow, but
Tundra Wind is such a wise soul that he probably overlooked my naiveté and
just let his intuition tell him if I should be the one. Obviously, I passed
the test.

The transition to Lynx wouldn't happen right away. It happened in
1989 after I moved to Washington state. I became the editor of the local
newspaper there, which meant I had access to the tools needed to expand on
Tundra Wind's idea for a renga zine, and turn it

into something that could be distributed far and wide. I changed the name
of the zine to Lynx after consultation with Jane and Tundra Wind.

Lynx mimicked the size and shape of APA Renga, but was published
on newsprint. This was before widespread access to desktop publishing, so Lynx
was put together in the old "cut and paste" method, which I had
learned from putting the newspaper together the same way. Lynx went out
to 1000 addresses worldwide (that's the minimum you can send out for a bulk
mail permit), though only a handful were subscribers. I do remember that I
submitted information about Lynx to many literary directories, and then
I began to sign up for giving workshops and presentations of renga at literary
conferences, schools, and wherever else I could in the Pacific Northwest. The Lynx
family grew. The original renga blossomed and new renga began.

Then a wonderful thing happened. A friend sent composer John Cage a copy of
Lynx. John Cage contacted me and said he was sending me a grant to
publish Lynx. Yippee! He sent grants each year for three years and was
a big fan of our avant garde approach to renga. There was much
unsolicited publicity about Lynx on account of John Cage's notoriety. Lynx
was featured in a traveling exhibit of zines sponsored by the Hemingway
Western Studies Center. We owe much to John Cage for spreading the word about Lynx.
He would tell people how a handful of poets were reviving renga in the
original spirit that Basho intended. I received letters of support from
friends of Cage, including Gary Snyder, William Stafford, and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti. Lynx was put on the shelves of specialty book shops far
and wide, including City Lights in San Francisco, Powells in Portland, and
Gotham Bookmart in NYC. It was high time for the new school of renga.

I published Lynx as long as I could. When I lost access to the
printing tools at the newspaper office, and the transition to desktop
publishing began, a friend of mine, Nicky Benjamin, who had a few drafting
tables, a desktop PC and a laser printer in her garage, helped me put together
Lynx. In 1993, I turned it over to Jane Reichhold when I moved to
Portland to finish college. Now my masters degree allows me to teach at the
college level, and often I teach English, literature, and composition courses
at local colleges.

I engage my students in renga because it is such a wonderful teaching tool,
naturally awakening the muse for those who didn't know they had it in them.

One special memory I have is the renga William Stafford started and shared
after he heard my daughter and I recite a renga at one of his book parties.
It's one of the last things he wrote before passing in 1993. It hasn't been
widely published, despite the

notables participating. It's the way I remember him – trying new things
even to the end of his days. You can read
the renga.

Jane originally sparked my interest in renga, and now Jane is the Lynx-keeper.
It's fate. Thanks Jane. We owe so much to your steadfast nurturing of the only
renga movement that matters. I have fond memories of Lynx and have kept
in touch with a few participants over the years. Hiroaki Sato and I have
collaborated on a few pieces that were published in Japan.

When the World Wide Web came along it was clear to me that hypertext had
something in common with the structure of renga. Renga and hypertext
demonstrate the natural way that humans think, by grouping related thoughts
and emotions into an infinite string of memory theaters. Renga is mnemonics
for the soul. When I re-read the renga that Jane and I shared, I can smell and
taste and feel the ocean.

restarted on February 2005 when Lamar Advertising built a new reader board

near one of the busiest intersections in Shreveport (Youree Drive at Kings

Highway). SRAC paid Lamar to finish out the 11 poems from the 2002 call
and

to include the eight additional poems selected in 2003. The contract
called

for each poem to run seven days, changing out each Friday. So far, the

poems have been keeping on schedule.

Photo credit: Fred Dozier

Nan Dozier with her haiku in 2002

Poets selected in October 2002:

Nadine A. Charity (1 poem)

Nan Dozier, former Haiku Society of America member (6 poems)

Ashley Mace Havird (3 poems)

Lakisha Hamilton (1 poem)

Marian M. Poe, Haiku Society of America member (2 poems)

Lisa Yarbrough (2 poems)

Poets selected in October 2003:

Carlos Colon, Haiku Society of America member (4 poems)

Theresa L. Mormino, Haiku Society of America member (4 poems)

UKIAHAIKU FESTIVAL 2005
Jane Reichhold

Ukiah is a Pomo Indian word as well as the county seat of Mendocino
county, which you may have noticed is haiku spelled backwards.
Since Mendocino county seems filled with artists and poets, it is not
surprising that Ukiah has a very active poetry program. The many poets, they
even have a local poet laureate, got together about three years ago and
decided to have a ukiaHaiku Festival. They sponsored a contest in the schools,
and got lots of entries. So they did it again and last at the awards
ceremony they invited Harumi Blyth, Robert Blyth’s daughter as speaker. That
was so successful that they held the festival again in April, poetry month in
the States, and this time they invited me to judge the contemporary entries
and then to give the keynote speech. And so I did.

"Thank you for inviting me to participate in this event today. It has
been so inspiring to hear all of these excellent haiku and to meet their
authors.

Before I begin I would like to say a few words on the importance of haiku.
Ever since Western Poetry, that is poetry written by persons in Europe and
America, abandoned the form of the sonnet, and then the ballad, to develop
"free verse" or a poem that has no form shared by others, there has
been a huge blossoming of poetry. By not having any set form, people who never
would have thought of themselves as poets, suddenly had the freedom to write
what they call "a poem."

I believe this was a good thing for poetry and for the people. Look at the
abundance of poetry readings and especially of web sites for poetry and just
be thankful. However, as more free verse poetry pours out around us, its very
freedom makes some of us want to also have a form, a fence, a plan for our
poetry. Here comes haiku.

But with it came several problems. The largest one was its smallness. Poets
who admired the book-length poems of the Europeans, decided you could not get
poetry into just three short lines and declared haiku as a non-poetry form.
This happened about 100 years ago and a lot of people have still not yet
gotten this idea out of their heads.

Even as late as the 1980s "authorities" declared that haiku were
NOT poetry, and many poets believed them and still do.

So I warn you, if you become a haiku writer, many poets will find you not
fit to invite you to read for them, be in their anthologies, or even sit at
the same table with them. Be prepared to be ostracized, shut out, laughed at,
and to become invisible as poet. Not only will you be treated as if you are
the member of a minority group, you will also be in the minority. But this is
good.

This is good because you are already on the spot where the other, and much
better known poets, will have to go. This is because, by learning how to write
haiku you are learning about the very heart of poetry. The paradox is how easy
it is to write a haiku and yet how very hard it can be to write a very good one.

I know, sometimes they seem to drift down with the ease of snowflakes
falling on your tongue and other times you can struggle with the wording of
one for haiku years. I know because I still have not properly written about
the very first time I felt a haiku.

At the time, 1967, I was living in the Sierra foothills and had gone to SF
to pick up a load of clay. It was too late to drive back that night so I found
a bookstore and hung out there until it closed. In order not to appear to be
free-loading I bought the cheapest book off of a close-out counter, more for
its small price than its small poems. Yes, it was a book of haiku –
translations of the Japanese masters: Basho, Busom and Issa. And yes I was
instantly charmed by them. But at the time I was studying the poetry of
Robinson Jeffers and William Everson and I thought that only this was real
poetry – the kind of poetry I wanted to write.

Then one day, as I was sitting at my newest kick wheel, still outdoors
under a big pine tree, just as I was pulling up the clay, you know that
magical moment when the clay takes on a life of its own and begins to grow
upward under your fingers, tickling your palms, just at that moment, a mocking
bird began trilling a clear and incredible song (as they do in the spring when
announcing their territory). It was if the sound of the song entered my ears,
traveled down my neck, dropped through my arms and flowed out my fingers so
that it was the bird’s song that made the pot rise up and take on a form.

About ten years later I learned that one called such experiences a
"haiku moment." I also learned that some people felt that having
such an experience would be the basis for the very best haiku. Unfortunately,
all the many, many haiku I have written about my first haiku moment have
failed to be good haiku. There are many reasons for this.

First of all, I did not think that I, as a non-Japanese could write a
haiku. I know I wrote down words in three lines in my notebook and I
definitely knew that what I had experienced was the exact kind of inspiration
that occurred in haiku, but I refused to think of it as haiku. It was like
stealing someone else’s candy bar and making it mine by eating it. I was
thrilled with the idea that by reading of the haiku of other people I could
come to a new way of experiencing my own life, but I truly thought I had no
right to imitate someone else’s poetry.

This feeling is one that is shared by almost every poet who comes into
contact with haiku. Poets will read the translations of the Japanese masters,
but refuse to write haiku. They may imitate parts of the form, as by putting
their own free verse into three lines, or by writing about
nature, but they do not study the form enough to write a "proper"
haiku.

Therefore you have taken steps that 90% of the poets now writing have been
unable to take – to study and to WRITE haiku.

Again there is another paradox with haiku. It needs a lot of rules. A lot
more rules than such a short form should even need. Many of you are still
working with the 5,7,5 rule and if I had more time I would love to help you
get over that threshold. But if I did that I would load you up with even more
rules. And I encourage you, since you have made such prize-winning beginnings
with haiku, that you stick with the form and learn all you can about it. Good
luck. I started writing forty years ago and I am still learning, still
revising my work, still trying to make it better.

Because there are so many rules, luckily no one can follow them all, so we
are forced to pick the ones we do follow. Having read the haiku for the
section I judged, it was clear to me, who had adopted which rules to follow.
Rules are not a bad thing, especially when you get to pick them. And I do
encourage you study all the rules (they are in my book and on my web site) and
pick a set for you to try to follow. The good thing is that when you really
good at following any rule, you will become bored with the poems that result
and will pick another one and the form will be fresh and new to you.

Because we are all following a different set of rules, haiku can be very
different. You have experienced that here today. And the form can be even more
elastic, expanding to contain the silliest jokes to the deepest almost
religious enlightenment. You see, haiku are truly the heart of poetry and
therefore they can be the seed of any poem.

This is a reason haiku is taught in the schools. And haiku should be
studied as the first introduction to poetry. But what I would like to impress
upon you is the idea that you need not outgrow haiku. As you grow up, haiku
will grow up with you, become complicated enough to entertain you until your
hair turns white.

Now comes the courage part. To stay with haiku is to earn you the
disrespect of poets and the poetry mainstream. To them haiku is too simple
(because they have not studied it enough to even write a good one), too
child-like, and yet as poets we need to become like children, still filled
with the wonder of the universe.

Western poetry is too often a teaching of one’s philosophy of life or
built around the poets’ feelings. And that is the most fun stuff to work
with. We love our feelings, we delight in letting others know how we feel, and
we find our feelings very, very important. The problem with building poetry
completely on feelings, is that they are our very own. Perhaps a poem may
touch someone who has had similar experiences, but no one can duplicate the
description of another’s feelings.

Haiku bypasses this pitfall. By putting into the poem mostly images of
things, without description, the reader is given the material to evoke a
feeling but is not bound to follow the author’s feelings. Do not go to sleep
on me at this point, because here is the crux and secret of Japanese poetry.

By using the names of things, and especially the images of nature (and this
includes human nature as well as nature-nature), you are aligning your poem
with the eternal the everlasting, the world of nature. Our feelings are
fleeting. In fact you cannot hold on to any emotion very long, even if you
write a poem about it. So the poetry that will last is the poetry built on
everlasting images. Notice the popularity of Basho’s poems, now over 400
years old and teaching us new things with every translation. How much 400 year
old Western Poetry are you studying or even reading? If you do read
Shakespeare’s sonnets you will notice that the poems that survived are the
ones filled with the images of things.

Writing poetry is the art of being exact. And nothing teaches you this
faster than haiku. When you have so less words to work with, you must make
every effort to make each word count and therefore poetry IS the choosing of
the best words for the deepest feelings.

Maybe this is the best place to end this speech. And it has been a lot
harder to make a short one. Three hours would have allowed me to make a proper
beginning. Saving you that on such a lovely day, I do want to encourage you to
stick with haiku. You have proven you have a talent for it. Do not throw away
this gift because it may have seemed to be easy for you. I would wish that you
would delve deeper into the form. Study its beginnings, read how it has
developed, listen to what people are doing with it. You can make a difference!
The form is still evolving in English, and all the non-Japanese languages, and
you can make a difference in what it becomes by sticking with the form. As you
continue to write haiku, continue to evolve yourself, you will, in this
process, change the form. Haiku is just beginning to be recognized as a valid
poetry form, and you are here on the ground floor. Whatever the genre becomes
it will become what those of us today are writing. Each haiku, like a drop of
water, becomes the sea of haiku literature. Through our eyes and ears, come
the images of our world. They pass through the nets of our hearts and are
offered up on the plates of pages of ink or monitor screens for others. I wish
you well and many haiku in your lives! Blessed be!

[Because I could not get permission to quote the winning poems, here are
some I wrote on that day.]

ukiaHaiku festival
only the ocean is still
on May 1

no wind
and yet I am to give
a speech

rolling on Hwy One
the surf so still
only the car moves

Point Arena
on a sleepy Sunday
only flowers open

going by the rez
the road lined with the red
of Indian paintbrushes

startled
the blackbird flies
into his song

coming inland
the depth of the sea
in redwoods

climbing the pass
the huge white clouds
we can see from home

greeting a friend
grape leaves sprout
on arms of vines

meeting
at Church and School Streets
ukiaHaiku festival

clouds gathering
for the haiku meeting
my nervous nerves

prize winner
the best haiku written
by the tiniest girl

(for Dennis Dutton)

in new robes
the whole festival blessed
by his presence

the ride home
every path invites us to walkin the redwood forest

the sun finally sets
on our exhaustion
our happiness

The next day we found out we made the front page of the Ukiah daily
newspaper. You can see their story here.

In the most influential daily German News paper, Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, (6 pages alone of Fuilleton - referring to events in the arts)
from November 22, 2004, we found a long article about Kevin Starr. In there,
the report gives the German readers a detailed description of all the books
professor Starr wrote about the California history, titled Americans and the
Californian Dream, of which six volumes are already published. Right now, his
book of essays, titled Coast of Dreams, California on the Edge 1990-2003,
appeared in the market, and is a great seller. Beside this, the article
mentions Kevin Starr's position as a professor at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and his accomplishments as the State Librarian of the
State Library, Sacramento, California. During his reign, he helped founding
the 'Haiku Archives', a constantly growing collection of works written by the
best American writers concerned with the Japanese genres of Haiku, tanka,
renga and haibun.

Since more and more German writers are reading the web page of
Ahapoetry.com, we concluded that articles about new developments reported also
in German would be helpful. So here follows the first one of a planed series.

In the summer of 1989, Kazuo Sato offered to make the four-hour drive up from
Berkeley to visit us at the barn, where we lived then. Jane (I’ve forgotten
her last name), a young Japanese-American girl, and two Japanese young men
accompanied him on the trip. After getting acquainted over tea and tidbits our
guests were eager to see the rest of the property. As soon as we got outdoors,
our cat Tuxedo came running up to Kazuo as if greeting an old friend. The cat
simply would not let Kazuo walk. He twined himself so completely around his
ankles, the only way we could proceed was for Kazuo to carry Tuxedo, which he
gladly did as he explained that he and his wife had twelve cats at home. This
explained why he had written the book, And the Cat, Too with all those
cat haiku.

As we wandered among the huckleberry bushes under the pines, Kazuo asked to
excuse himself to go to the bathroom. Being that we were already outdoors, I
asked if he wished to use the "outdoor one." Suddenly he was as joyful
and excited as a child. So I led all of us down the path to the big sequoia tree
under which was our "throne."

The year before I had commissioned a carpenter to build a huge redwood throne
for Werner’s Christmas present. It was basically a box with a back and arms
added to it. The hole in it had a heart-shaped lid and underneath was a hole in
the ground over the roots of the tree. Because we had so little water there on
top of the ridge, it was very helpful to save a few flushes by using this
throne. Also we thought it was a marvelous experience to sit there in the quiet
of the woods with only an inquisitive blue jay to watch as we "took care of
business."

When our group arrived in the clearing where the throne sat, Kazuo took one
look at it, turned around and ran. To my horror, I thought I had insulted him or
so embarrassed him that he had run away. Imagine my relief when he quickly
returned with his camera. He wanted one of the guys to take a photograph of him
on the throne!